Weekly Daf #73

A Different Murder Mystery

The Cases: A man intends to kill Reuven with a stone and the stone kills Shimon instead.

A man sees Reuven and Shimon standing together and throws a stone with an intention to kill either of them.

A man sees a man who he believes is Reuven and throws a stone to kill him because he wants to kill Reuven and the victim turns out to be Shimon.

The Dispute: In all of these cases the majority opinion
of the Sages is
that he is guilty of murder and liable for capital
punishment because he had an intention to murder. Rabbi
Shimon, however, deduces from a Torah passage that he is
only liable for capital punishment when he explicitly
declares that he intends to kill a specific victim and does
so. He therefore rules that in all three cases there will
be no death penalty for murder.

The Problem: The Rambam (Laws of Murder and Life Preservation
4:1) rules that if a man indiscriminately throws a stone into a crowd
of people and kills one of them he does not receive the
death penalty. Is the Rambam ruling like the Sages or like
Rabbi Shimon? If he follows the Sages' view it would seem
that the stone thrower should be guilty even in such a case
because he intended murder. If he follows Rabbi Shimon's
view the Rambam should have cited the three cases listed
above as well to let us know that even in such cases he is
exonerated.

The Resolution: Rabbi Yossef Caro, in his "Kessef
Mishneh" commentary,
explains that the Rambam follows the majority opinion of
the Sages and the stone thrower will therefore be guilty in
all of the above three cases. In the particular situation
described by the Rambam he is exonerated not because of a
lack of intention to murder but because of a technical
inability to issue the warning which must precede any crime
in order for it to be punishable by a human court. This
warning must be specific to the act he is about to commit
and this is lacking when someone throws a stone
indiscriminately.

Sanhedrin 79a

How to Correct a Parent

If someone sees his father transgressing a Torah commandment he
should not say to him: "Father, you have transgressed the
words of the Torah!" He should rather say: "Father,
this is what it says in the Torah."

The first approach is ruled out because it embarrasses the father,
whose honor he is obliged to respect. In regard to the proper
approach there are two opinions as to how it is applied:

Statement:Question:"Father, this is what it"Father, this is what it says in the Torah???"says in the Torah." By asking rather than reprimanding he avoids embarrassing
his father. - Rambam
By being reminded that The same caution in how to address a father applies to a
there is such a passage the situation in which he has made an error in citing a Torah
father will realize the source. The son must avoid saying "Father, don't say it
practical application to that way" in order to avoid embarrassing him. He must
his situation. - Rashi use the indirect form, either as a statement (Rashi) or
as a question (Rambam)